This invention relates to transferring a parison preform from a heating station into position over a plug in a molding station.
Blow molding hollow articles such as bottles and the like from reheated parison preforms so as to take advantage of the strengthening effect of molecular orientation is known in the art. Exemplary of such art is Wiley et al., U.S. Pat. No. 3,507,005. Inherent in such a molding technique is the necessity for transferring parisons from a heating means to a molding station. In laboratory or development scale equipment this can easily be accomplished either by hand or by mechanical means such as is shown in said Wiley et al patent. However, for such techniques to be competitive on a commercial scale it is necessary to reduce cycle time to a minimum, and insure virtually perfect reproducibility so that each article will be perfectly formed, thus keeping rejects to a minimum. One problem in this area is accurate alignment of the parison in the molding zone, particularly when carrying out the operation at a speed sufficiently high to be commercially feasible.